clitic

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. An unstressed word, typically a function word, that is incapable of standing on its own and attaches in pronunciation to a stressed word, with which it forms a single accentual unit. Examples of clitics are the pronoun 'em in I see 'em and the definite article in French l'arme, "the arm.”

adj. Of or relating to a clitic or clisis.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. A morpheme that functions like a word, but appears not as an independent word but always attached to a following or preceding word.

Etymologies

Greek klitikos, leaning, from klīnein, to lean; see klei- in Indo-European roots.

(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

By the way, how is it that your research has to do with the clitoris as in "clitic"?

Most languages can adopt theme-rheme structure idiosyncratically — as for English, we often use as for theme constructions — but topic-prominent languages use systematic changes in syntax or even dedicated morpological elements such as the Japanese clitic particle -wa to mark themes and to set them apart from rhemes.

A grammatically independent and phonologically dependent word. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level. For example, the English possessive -'s is a clitic; in the phrase the girl next door’s cat, -’s is phonologically attached to the preceding word door while grammatically combined with the phrase the girl next door, the possessor.